Greece - Page 33

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has denied that he gave the middle finger to Germany, claiming that video evidence of him doing so was doctored. The person who originally uploaded the disputed video to YouTube has insisted that it is

The eleventh-hour decision to extend Greece’s bailout a few weeks ago turns out to have been an even closer shave than it seemed at the time, with Reuters reporting that a massive revolt among German conservatives left the vote “hanging by a thread,” as one German legislator put it. Escalating tensions between sullen Greece and fed-up Germany could make the votes on further bailout extensions or new financing deals even tighter.

Vladimir Putin brags about how he lied about Russia’s invasion of Crimea; Europe to Greece: Stop wasting time and get serious about reforms

A group of 50 anarchist political activists took over the official headquarters of ruling Greek party Syriza in Athens on Sunday, demanding the leftist group enact prison reform and free a terrorist caught after injuring himself with his own bomb.

Greece’s PM Tsipras faces opposition from EU bailout deal; Cyprus gives Russia access to Cypriot ports on the Mediterranean

Sectarian violence surging all across Pakistan; Greece misses deadline for submitting reforms list.

Greece’s new socialist government appears to have given up on its demands for debt relief without spending controls, at least for the time being.

Greece and Germany are eyeball to eyeball on bailout crisis; Libya chaos threatens to reopen bitter rift between Qatar and Egypt; Ethnic Chinese Kokang burst into violence in northern Burma (Myanmar)

The new socialist government of Greece is not having much success convincing its European creditors to forget about billions of dollars in debt, and then loan Greece even more money. Bloomberg News reports Commerzbank AG is doubling the odds of a Greek exit from the Eurozone to 50 percent, which sounds like a polite underestimation of the odds, given the sudden and acrimonious end of the latest debt talks.

China’s Navy arrived in Greece on Monday amid concerns that the country is considering an exit from the European Union.

Greece bailout talks collapse in acrimony; Egypt faces two-front war with airstrikes in Libya; Muslim versus Muslim wars in the Mideast continue to grow; Iraq army preparing to recapture Mosul from ISIS

Greece is on a collision course with senior  officials of the Eurozone after refusing to be bullied during debt financing talks. The newly-elected leftwing Syriza government reacted with fury to demands that the country stick to the austerity plan which were

Greece will leave the Euro and the rest of the EU has to work out how to minimise the impact on financial markets, says Ken Clarke. The pro-European former Chancellor of the Exchequer made the claim on the BBC Sunday

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose socialist administration has been a staunch supporter of the radical leftist anti-austerity parties rising to prominence in Greece and Spain, claimed on a national broadcast last week that Greek PM ‘Comrade Alexis’ Tsipras has agreed to visit Venezuela and several other socialist Latin American nations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Wednesday that Russia would consider financial aid to Greece should the circumstances allow, with the caveat that Russia’s economy is not in the greatest state it could be to help bail out anyone else. Lavrov’s comments echo those of the nation’s Finance Minister in January following the election of new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Failing Ukraine ceasefire negotiations to go through the night; Greece’s negotiations with eurozone fail to reach deal; US closes Yemen embassy, following Somalia, Syria and Libya

Diana Choyleva of Lombard Street Research, who produces an “unmassaged” calculation of China’s true economic growth, just reported that China’s fourth quarter GDP growth plummeted to 1.7 percent, versus the official 7.4 percent rate.

Over the weekend, former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan predicted that Greece will end up leaving the eurozone and that the euro will not long survive its departure.

30 dead in Cairo Egypt as soccer fans clash with police; Greece’s Alexis Tsipras approaches Wednesday confrontation with Europe

The newly elected Greek government is quite correct to eschew austerity and seek reductions in what it owes northern European governments. The Euro is punishing the South, and solving Mediterranean states’ chronic financial problems would require moving some industry from the North to the South. More austerity would only bleed the patient further.

Iannis Xenakis’s work ‘Kottos’ echoes Greece’s Nazi vs Communist struggle; Greek Tragedy and Generational Dynamics; Nigeria postpones national elections because of Boko Haram; Gulf Arabs condemn Houthi takeover of Yemen

Russian President Vladimir Putin took another step to disturb ties between Russia and Europe when he invited new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to Moscow on May 9.

Spain’s new radical leftist party, Podemos (Spanish for “We Can”), is embroiled in a new corruption scandal, this time accused in a complaint by the attorney coalition Clean Hands (“Manos Limpias”) funding itself with “undeclared” Venezuelan money acquired during “diplomatic” trips to the socialist nation.

Terrorists attack school, part of growing violence in Karachi Pakistan; Jordan’s King vows ‘relentless’ war on ISIS ‘on their own ground’; The European Central Bank turns the screws on Greece’s banks

Spanish Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro has categorically rejected any attempts to “change the rules” regarding austerity measures imposed on Greece by European Union regulations. “Europe is a club of democracies, and entering is voluntary,” he stated, implying that, should Greece’s new government refuse to impose austerity measures, they can leave the EU.

End of sequestration signals explosive new spending splurge in Washington; The Iraq war had nothing to do with the federal deficit; Government receipts plunged when the bubbles burst; The high federal deficit is caused by bubbles bursting, not the Iraq war

Spain’s far left Podemos party hopes to copy success of Greece’s Syriza party; Egypt’s al-Sisi blames foreign countries for terrorist attacks; Houthis use live fire against protesters in Yemen

European finance ministers worried that Greece’s new far-left government would renege on the terms of previous bailout packages, while demanding even more debt to finance wild new spending programs, were given fresh reason for concern when the new Greek finance minister announced his government would not negotiate bailout terms with the European Union or International Monetary Fund.

Hezbollah backs down from war with Israel; Clashes between Nusra front and Free Syrian Army spreading in Syria; Jundallah takes credit for massive mosque attack in Pakistan; Egypt’s military begins ‘wide military offensives’ in North Sinai; Greece clashes with eurogroup ‘No more bailout, no more troika!’; In Denmark you are now paid to take out a mortgage

ISIS-linked terrorists kill dozens in Egypt’s northern Sinai; Russia looks to Greece as an ally against EU sanctions; Greece forces compromise in planned new EU sanctions against Russia

This week, Palestine’s Islamist Hamas movement congratulated the head of Greece’s newly-elected, far-left Syriza coalition on his party’s victory and hailed him for his staunch opposition to “Israeli crimes, aggression, and siege on Gaza.”

Greece’s Alexis Tsipras escalates confrontation with Germany; Israel promises revenge after Hezbollah attack kills two soldiers; Hezbollah’s attack breaks a taboo from 2006 war

A recent article by the Pew Research Center delves into the question of how different European states view themselves and their neighbors and the results are almost comical. Among the eight EU nations surveyed, the Greeks have an overwhelmingly higher opinion of themselves than other countries do, while the Italians are the most self-effacing.

In what has become the first major foreign policy move by the far-left newly elected government of Greece, new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ office has denied that his country assented to a European Union statement released this week condemning Russia’s further meddling in Ukraine.

Americans who haven’t been paying much attention to the collapse of Greek socialism have been missing a very instructive lesson in where their own country may be heading, for Greece is the end stage of Obama-style debt-fueled dependency politics. It could happen in America, too, most likely beginning with demands for huge federal bailouts by bankrupt Democrat-run basket case state governments.

The European left is in party mode. After the decisive victory of Greece’s Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) in parliamentary elections last night, Greek leftists took to the streets and their analogs in Spain and the UK warned that their nations would be next. But while the hard left has much to celebrate, “moderate” socialists on the continent should take the news with a grain of salt, as the leftist party that ruled Greece as recently as 2011 appears to have lost almost all support.